


Ho!

by morrypough



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, i've been here for 5 years but i still don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrypough/pseuds/morrypough
Summary: A story about music, girls and love - not particularly in that order.





	Ho!

**Author's Note:**

> wow english is hard

  
***

 

The sea rumbles and smoothly rustles on the pebbles somewhere far away outside the window; the seagulls shriek and screech flying back and forth not unlike the restless ghosts of sunken ships. The hollow noise of road tires and hurried steps dies down, creating a brief impression of the whole world completely disappearing, as if this house and this sea are the only things left on Earth.

Rina barely hears the doorbell ringing and takes the headphones down in a rush, sinking into the silence of the apartment. She gets out of the bed and wanders down the corridor, simultaneously trying to make her disheveled hair appear at least half-decent. She has to make a good impression, since it can be the only one person.

“Ho,” Rina greets her guest and waits until she pulls the snow-covered hat off and smiles. Her eyelashes are frosted and her nose is bright red and it seems like she is about to laugh - that’s how joyfully animated her whole face is. “Welcome home.”

The blue coat takes its rightful place on the heating battery and the small suitcase is tucked in the corner. Rina knows that notebooks and music books occupy two thirds of it, and there is hardly any place for anything besides a spare sweater and a toothbrush. Sooner or later two thirds of any place Ho declares as her own turn into the abode of music.

While Rina puts the kettle on, gazing musingly at the snowstorm behind the window glass, Ho goes to the (one and only) living room and starts making some rustling noises, probably searching for some fresh clothes. By the moment the kettle boils, the noises have already died down, and the girl joins Rina in the kitchen. She pulls out bags of caramel tea and cups and carefully pours water into them. It would have been just like the return of a father from a business trip or of a daughter from studying abroad if not for the complete silence.

Rina squints at Ho sipping her favorite awfully sweet tea and gladly notes that she hasn’t changed at all. The same lovely smile, smooth waves of dark hair, slim figure dressed in an old pun shirt and silly flower-printed shorts. Ho has been her only constant pretty much since they were fifteen. Now they both are twenty-five years old, but nothing, absolutely nothing has changed.

“How’s the gala?” Rina asks and pours some more water into their cups. “I suppose you did great as always, but still.”

Ho slightly tilts her head to the side, and it is clear that it means “sure”.

Rina doesn’t like it when her friend takes off all of a sudden like this: an invitation to a performance in the evening, hurriedly bought tickets and a regretful smile next morning. But that’s what Ho’s work is. Her fingers, long, slender and elegant, were made for racing across the piano keys, and it is perfectly right. It’s not her fault that Rina is a freelancer and goes out no more than once a month to deliver the finished translation of someone else’s novel to the publishing house and once again hide in their tiny studio apartment in an average tiny Russian city.

Rina is slightly jealous of Ho for her work because the latter really likes to play – after all, it is such a rarity when your job actually brings you pleasure! (And sometimes Rina wishes that she was the only one who could do it, but these are selfish thoughts, and she drives them away). Still, she likes listening to Ho, especially on days when the snow bites her face once you open the window leaf and the condensing dusk evokes particularly romantic thoughts about candles in the semidarkness and pink chocolate. On days like these Ho likes to play compositions by Sviridov, and ordinary evenings suddenly become imbued with music. It is everywhere in their apartment: music sheets stick out from under the table, from closets, pockets and hats. Once Rina found one under her pillow while tossing and turning in her sleep. When Ho is there, it all resonates with her, and Rina simply can’t imagine their mutual customary silence might be uncomfortable for someone. In reality, it is full of music too.

Rina requests Ho to play something by Joe Hisaishi because she has a weakness for simple melodies from Studio Ghibli’s soundtracks, and Ho easily agrees. She even discovers a few sheets with his works – of course, absolutely by accident, and Rina doesn’t even pretend to be surprised when they happen to be her favorites (though she inevitably tears up at the first notes of _The Merry-Go-Round Of Life_ ). They both sit by the piano, barely squeezed between two closets, and smile: Ho is happy because she is playing and Rina is happy because Ho’s finally at home.

While the latter collects the sheets and stuffs them into unbeknownst places, Rina discreetly hides her player, still quietly hissing with seagulls' screeches and water splashes.

It’s already dark outside, the clock shows half past midnight, and they are really ought to sleep by this point. Ho yawns and goes to the bathroom whereas Rina tries to recall where the second blanket is and if she left it at dry cleaner’s. It seems like she did which means she’ll have to freeze a little tonight.

Ho returns and pecks Rina on the cheek, getting into bed and turning to face the wall. The latter does the same after having cleaned her teeth and found the second pair of slippers since Ho stole hers once again. It all is so domestic that Rina can’t help but smile.

Ho is at home.  


***  


They first meet each other at the tender age of fifteen when the life is all bright and vivid colors and everyone considers themselves totally unique. Rina doesn’t, though.

The New Girl is inconspicuous and mild, the pillow-girl to blow one’s nose into. When she is introduced to the class on the first day of school, Rina fails to remember her name, and then it’s too late – there is nobody else to repeat it.

The Girl is mute by birth.

She sits through her classes with the head propped up and headphones securely strapped on, and looks at the teacher through the half-closed eyelids; it seems like she is either dreaming or soaring in the clouds all the time. Rina sometimes throws a look at her desk and slightly smirks at her neatly written notes. She knows better. Well, actually she really doesn’t because The Girl is a complete mystery even after a few weeks of studying together. She seems to be nice but too shut-in. Aloof. In fact, Rina often catches herself thinking about nudging her a little bit and whispering about how Sanya isn’t going to show up at history today because she always oversleeps on Mondays and how she at all costs should avoid talking to their PE teacher who apparently still has not learned about the existence of deodorants—but something prevents her from doing this, every time. Maybe it’s The Girl’s melancholic and slightly dreary gaze.

Rina is irrationally afraid — as if she touches her, she will take not only her voice but her power and something much more important as well. Maybe she is not the only one who is afraid: that would explain why The Girl became something akin to a ghost for all their classmates but not this stupid, stupid mocking moniker – Ho. Not a name, not an affectionate nickname but a quick hail which could have been directed towards anyone. Nobody cares about her, and that’s it.

At the end of September Rina sits down next to Ho during a break and asks her to explain the latest math topic to her. She raises her eyes, startled and a little frightened, and hurriedly begins scribbling something down in her notebook. Later Rina will understand that it is her only way of communicating with everyone outside of parents and doctors.

“ _sorry i can’t talk_ ,” is what is clumsily written on the page which Ho hesitantly shows her. Rina smiles.

“It’s okay, I don’t really like talking anyway. Just write down the formulas if you please?”  


***  


Her mother tries to give Ho everything she needs but she is not a teacher and Ho has to study, and they both know it very well. Therefore, for a while Ho attends an educational establishment for disabled pupils. She’s not lucky – there is no one like her. A few blind children who slide their fingers over letters and strangers’ faces in order to read them. A few deaf ones who learn how to read the movements of others’ lips. But no one is able to read her eyes. She goes back to home schooling.

Since not every third or even thirtieth person knows sign language, Ho has to find other ways of communicating with people because she definitely has something to say. Notebooks don’t fully suit her: the sheets run out too fast and ink even faster. Moreover, no one would want to wait for an answer for minutes and minutes because Ho, even with all her swiftness and skill in writing, takes up too much time for anything besides meaningless small talk.

She tries chatting online but it tires her quickly: she lacks eye contact, and impersonal printed letters are not satisfying enough. It is also conversing, it is what she needs but it is saved only for emergencies when her muteness is hammering her to the ground.

Ho starts learning music. Notes are basically the alphabet of a language much more universal than Russian or English, and there are far more people in the world who know it than she could have thought. Piano keys, black and white, white and black, are bewitching, and Ho lets herself be mesmerized by them with great joy. By the age of thirteen, she successfully participates in musical contests all other the country.

She loves playing. Other people’s works miraculously reflect her own struggles and victories, dreams and fears, and subtle nuances in the way she sometimes hesitates or speeds up while moving her fingers over the keys somehow make it truly unique. Unreplicable by anyone. However, Ho fails at writing music herself: her melodies are clumsy and disharmonic like a child taking his first steps. She knows she is no genius but enjoys trying nevertheless.

Listening to music is also very nice. Ho brings her headphones with her wherever she goes and shields herself from people who couldn’t possibly understand her and desperately attempts to understand them through their songs. She smiles listening to Chopin and cries listening to ABBA. Everything is fine, really, she’s content with her life but still can’t help herself when she hears gentle words about true love and friendship she probably will never experience in the same way.

Everything is fine, but there is still something missing, and Ho realizes she cannot suppress her longing for other people’s company. Surely, changing things will be hard but she is willing to try.

By the time she is fifteen Ho asks her mother to transfer her to a regular school. It probably won’t change anything and she will continue her life as a lone wolf but at least she will be able to create an illusion of normalcy and listen to others’ lives, so numbingly ordinary and amazing. Sadly, Rina is the only one who lets her – and lets her in. Neither of them ever regret it.

At the tender age of fifteen they exchange their music and each other.  


***  


It is Ho’s sixteenth birthday, and she and Rina sit in her room and listen to The Smiths. Rina thinks it’s only appropriate: the day is unhappy indeed. They have one cake for the two of them, covered with whipped cream and finely chopped strawberries and too sweet. So sweet that neither of them can take a bite since they ran out of tea.

“And what do we do now,” Rina exclaims solemnly and sticks a spoon into the cream. It stands almost upright and shows no intentions of falling soon. Ho heroically eats the last piece of cake on the plate and sighs a little, all the while gently nodding her head to the beat of the song. Rina sees her lips forming the words “but I won’t cry”, and something in her breaks. She kisses Ho tenderly, runs her hands through her hair and with sudden clarity realizes that the oh so dear and familiar aroma of her apple shampoo smells exactly like home.

Ho turns The Smiths and the lights off.

All their birthdays always end the same. After graduating from school, they start renting an apartment nearby the university where they study things they are completely disinterested in. The tradition to celebrate with a cake too sweet to enjoy and songs straight from the past century remains unaltered.

Year by year Ho becomes more and more confident, and Rina is the witness to this wonder. Ho is no longer afraid to touch someone’s shoulder and talk to them with the help of a notebook. She smiles more, agitates for something, cheers for someone, stops concealing herself. Ho changes a lot: her hair, which she used to hide behind, are now rose-colored and much shorter. Nonetheless, she stays right by Rina’s side, and it fills her heart with such warmth and joy that she sometimes worries it might burst.

Ho is considered the prettiest girl among their classmates in the university and also the most unapproachable one. She answers every offer to date with an apologizing smile. Only few of her admirers know she couldn’t possibly answer them differently.

When the years of studying are finally behind, Ho picks up playing a piano again. She is soon offered a seat in the city orchestra and accepts it without hesitation. And what follows it is touring with the said orchestra, fortunately not realy frequent. Rina gets a job as a translator in the local publishing house and at last immerses herself in the lush of being a freelancer and leaving for work once a month. Life goes on quietly. Rina likes to think of it as of a sea calm. Who knows when the wind will rise again?

Ho still has a lot of herself to uncover and reevaluate, but only music and Rina which lie at the core of her being remain unchanged. She couldn’t get rid of them even if she tried (and she doesn’t). But the little lonely girl whose name was lost somewhere between the sheets of her passport is dead – as well as the one whose notes were copied without even a hurried ‘thanks’, and the one who was hugged by Rina on her sixteenth birthday, and the one who dyed her hair pink and went to rallies. Now she wears stretched sweaters, has a stable work and feels truly happy.

Maybe one day she will compose something grand, something that will be hers in every note, and that will be a new stage in her life. There will be Rina’s grumbling sea, her mother’s ringing hope, distinct noises of many people she encountered and befriended. And of course there will be reverberating sounds of herself tying the whole piece together.

But she couldn’t say what it would be like yet.  


***  


At night, Ho gets up, fixes the blanket over Rina’s sleeping form, grabs a blank sheet of paper and with a sudden rush starts writing, writing and writing down what is playing in her head so distinctly right now. Ho bursts with everything that should be voiced – with everything she would like to say. She writes her own musical autobiography.

And when will it be finished? It doesn’t actually matter.

A dawn breaks through the floating snowflakes outside the window. Ho pulls her cold feet under her and turns around at the sounds of seagull screeches. Rina ignores her ridiculous alarm clock and only pulls the blanket over her head. Ho softly smiles.

The sea will be her autobiography’s leitmotif as well.


End file.
